Google AdWords Forum

Well, it has been about a month since Google released it own version of PPC in AdWords Select™. Give it a grade.

A - Great! Wouldn't change a thing! B - We have seen some decent results. Worth the money. C - So So, but still worth trying. D - Didn't get the results we were looking for. F - It is a waste of money.

Just curious what you all think. I have been on the fence waiting for some input.

B...If you try a keyword in AdWords, and it only gets a few clicks in 1000 impressions in the first position, you're out $15. In AdWords Select, it probably cost you 10 cents for those 2 clicks.

So we've literally tried hundreds of keyword combinations and it's been great for the ones that stuck around beyond the 1,000 impression mark. The new program lets you get creative and see what works much better than almost any other program.

The only downside so far is the aforementioned fact that they're not into Overture numbers yet. But our AdWords Select campaigns already rival our AdWords PPM ones for effectiveness.

I can't believe that Overture hasn't yet slapped them around with their patent voodoo that they do do, but until that day comes, I love it.

I've been doing a lot of testing with different keywords. My best guess is I'm not doing much better than break even at this point. Though I've been getting a decent amount of newletter subscriptions so I'm still somewhat positive on it.

Yeah, the wording etc we used was a direct lift of stuff we've been tweaking on Overture for a while so we knew it'd perform pretty well. Too well as it turned out - plenty of clicks but no conversion :o

Has anyone else got any solid data on conversion yet? I was surprised it was so bad in this case TBH...

C. I'm getting really good clickthroughs for my terms (ranging from .3% up to 3% on the well-tweaked ads), but no conversions yet. In fact, I'd bet all the money I've spent so far (which isn't that much) that all my clicks to date have been from someone looking to sell something to *me* rather than the other way around! This isn't a Google-specific issue, though, I'm seeing the same pattern on other PPCs and even on straight searches. So I'm not writing Google AdWords Select off yet...I'll give it two more months at least, then figure out my total ROI.

It depends a lot on the minimum CPC that your keywords have and if that cost is acceptable to you!. We tried 2 different flavors. One with a high CPC for some highly competitive keywords. This produced clicks and impressions but at a very high cost that the bottomline did not justify. So, we identified a few alternate keywords for which the minimum CPC is only 0.05 .. We are getting slightly over a 2% click rate for these keywords or about 20 clicks for 1000 impressions at a cost of $1.00

We are happy with getting 1000 impressions and 20 clicks for a cost of $1.00 ... This worked out to be much better than AdWords in this case at the same time our keywords are well targeted as shown by the 2% click thru rates.

If Google were to drop the minimun CPC to what findwhat, kanoodle or goClick starts at which is 1 cent that will be awesome!.

I had a pretty long conversation with my rep about the sponsor links (text banners) vs. the adwords program. Like all of you - I want to do testing.

Curiously, the rep said that the adwords program did a good job at branding for B2C but the text banners did more for B2B - especially the second position as opposed to the first. My simplized theory was that B2B searchers clicked on it as it is closer to the normal rankings.

So - is there a difference on how we should rank the adwords program depending on type of site your promoting. AKA - click through rates could be higher for B2C as opposed to B2B.

The ones I've been dealing with are in some fairly generic categories. The CPC method has worked out to be cheaper in select than standard. (btw: it is 60% less than the same kw's on goto). However, the actual click rate is lower on Google than Goto.

D: In our industry the cost is around 1.5 to 5 times that of overture. We also cant write an ad that gets any click thoughs so google keeps shutting us down! I think its just the nature of our fairly small but competitive industry, not a reflection on Ad Words /AWSelect as a service.

as said earlier it a B for us ... i think it works well when used appropriately. i really welcome adwords select and its easy way you to set up number of keywords/campaigns ... overture is a torture if you are setting up a number of keywords .. i heard that overture has a bulk tool but it is no where to be seen on their web site ... so i emailed their support only to find out that you have to have a $1000 per month spend to avail the bulk keyword submission tool ... compare that to adwords/select or findwhat keyword submission tools ... a way cool!

A week or 2 ago, I saw (was it in SearchDay?) a discussion of Select and they said if you're warned 3 times about an ineffective campaign (<0.5%), you're thrown out of the program. At the time I looked throughout the FAQ's & found nothing.

I could have misunderstood, but in any event, has anyone heard there being the possibility of having your account closed due to chronic ineffectiveness? I bring it up because we, as I'm sure many webmasters are, are trying out a lot of combinations, and many of them just crash and burn. Our account average is barely at the 0.6% level, but that's many 0.1% and 0.2% ones and then a slew at 1.5%-2.5% that stick around.

So in another variant of Googlenoia, are there any arguments against continuing to try out literally hundreds of combos? {/Warning, rational thought moment -->} I could see them throwing out account holders who just throw unrelated darts and nothing sticks, but I worry about this other side.

Otherwise, their 1,000 impressions isn't much of a deterrent, because even if you tried 1,000 combinations and nothing worked, you'd still get 1,000,000 impressions for almost nothing.{/end rational thought}

>>I could have misunderstood, but in any event, has anyone heard there being the possibility of having your account closed due to chronic ineffectiveness?

You wouldn't have your account closed, you'd just have that ad suspended for the nonperforming keyword. If the clickthrough rate for a keyword goes below 0.5% (five clicks for the last 1,000 ad displays) the display rate for that keyword is decreased and you are emailed a warning. After three warnings, it stops displaying at all, and you have to pay $5 to reactivate it.